Downed tree opportunity

In our part of the world it has been nothing but rain and storms for over a month. The nice days without rain could probably be counted on one hand. The storms over the weekend finally decided to knock down a tree over the driveway.

It would be easy to be annoyed by something like this. Super easy to let it ruin your day. We have been there ourselves. Sunday was going to be one of the precious nice days that have been so few and far between. The idea of starting seeds in our new greenhouse dancing in our heads the night before like visions of sugar-plum fairies. To wake up to something like this would be beyond easy to be angry about it and let it ruin an entire day .

If we take a second and look at it though, it was actually a blessing, in more than one way. There were obvious benefits. One being we had been planning on cutting down this tree anyway when we built the house. Nature just sped it up a bit. Secondly it forced us to sharpen axes, chainsaw, clippers. Things that had been on the to do list for a while but never got around to it. With spring fast approaching no better time to get this done. So already good things happening because of this tree and we have not even gotten into the actual wood itself. Every part of it had its uses.

The tree was budding so the tips and blossoms can go to the rabbits. They love them as treats and peel the tender bark from the stick like beavers.

The straight limbs will be terrific terraces for the garden. Can you imagine snow peas , cucumbers, acorn squash and more covering these things? We can even cut into lengths for stakes to mark future garden rows. Things we would have gone into the woods to get soon anyway, easily were provided in our driveway.

The trunk and larger branches provided these thick logs which we plan on using to grow mushrooms. Granted the type of wood is not the greatest for this, but we had wanted more mushroom logs and they were provided. Again in the middle of the driveway.

The medium pieces were piled and will fuel a few weenie roasts this summer. Or maybe some lake side fires while fishing. Could even use the wood in the fire used to melt the beeswax we will use on the mushroom logs.

All the scraps and sawdust went into future garden beds and compost piles. As they break down, they will feed the soil and create pockets. Which is extra good in our clay soil.

Even if we had no use for the wood from the tree (hard to imagine anyone would feel like this though) it took a little over an hour to cut up process. We still had plenty of time to start our seeds and a few other projects done. How easy it would have been to let this one hour job ruin our whole day? How many times have we let something this simple, spoil something? We did not let it ruin our day this time and hopefully we will remember not to let little inconveniences like this spoil our day in the future. If we approached things with a positive attitude, often little inconveniences are actually blessings.

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One thought on “Downed tree opportunity”

We had a big Douglas fir fall a while ago. Although we do not use it all, and the wood needed to be cut up too small to mill into much lumber, it was a blessing that it did not do more damage than it did. Trees do that more often than not. Many seem to find the best place to fall.https://tonytomeo.com/2019/02/09/greenhouse-envy/